MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ SOMMAK BOUNPHALANGSY USING DIALOGUES IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS AT PONESAVANH UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL CHAMPASAK - LAM DONG (LAOS) MA.RESEARCH THESIS THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ SOMMAK BOUNPHALANGSY USING DIALOGUES IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS AT PONESAVANH UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL CHAMPASAK - LAM DONG (LAOS) MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: PHAN THI THANH THAO, PhD. HUE, 2017 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ SOMMAK BOUNPHALANGSY SỬ DỤNG HỘI THOẠI TRONG VIỆC DẠY KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH Ở TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG TRUNG HỌC PONESAVANH CHAMPASAK - LAM DONG (CHDC LÀO) LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. PHAN THỊ THANH THẢO HUẾ, 2017 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Date: 07 / 11 / 2017 Signature Sommak BOUNPHALANGSY i ABSTRACT The teaching of English language has become a challenging mission for English teachers in Lao PDR since English was considered one of the compulsory subjects at lower and upper secondary schools. Among four language skills, speaking should be taken into the great consideration because of the increasing communication needs nowadays. Hence, the improvement of teaching English speaking skills for students at upper secondary schools is of considerable necessity for teachers in Lao PDR. This research has been conducted to explore the issues on using dialogues in teaching English speaking skills in one upper-secondary school in Laos PDR.
Through the study on the learning and teaching context including 50 students in grade six (11/12) and 2 English teachers at Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School in Champasak-Lamdong, Laos, we find out three questions concerning the teaching of English speaking skills. Based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches with questionnaires and interviews in the study method, we have collected and analyzed data to achieve some results relating to students‟ difficulties in communicating in English, pronouncing correctly English words and their shortage of English grammar knowledge, as well as teachers‟ challenges in teaching English speaking skills and their ways of using dialogues in English classes. To carry out our teaching experiment, we have designed 5 lesson plans focusing on using dialogues in teaching English speaking skills. Despite the limited number of participants and schools in our study, which has regarded as an obstacle to expand this study in both scale and quality.
the findings of this study are also involved in some solutions to deal with difficulties in teaching English speaking skills and the implications on using dialogues to enhance the teaching quality of this skill for English teachers at Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School, Champasak-Lamdong, in particularly, and in Lao PDR, in general. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, with regard to my assistance, I would like to thank all teachers at Hue University of Foreign Languages, who have offered me the training courses on theory and methodology of English language teaching. I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my supervisor: Dr. Phan Thi Thanh Thao for her willingness to guide and give valuable corrections and suggestions during the writing of this thesis.
I am also grateful to the Dean of English Department, all the lecturers and staff of Hue University of Foreign Languages for their support and friendly help during my study. In addition, I would like to offer the sincere gratitude to the Headmaster and English teachers in Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School Champasak-Lamdong (Laos) for their permission and support of my study in Vietnam. I also acknowledge the kind assistance of students in grade six at Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School Champasak-Lamdong (Laos PDR) during the process of gathering data for the our study. Additionally, I would like to devote my special thanks to Hue University of Foreign Languages for providing me a good opportunity and facilities to study in this institution.
Personally, I am grateful to my family, my parents, my sisters and my brothers who have given me their love and support in my study and implementation of this thesis. Lastly, I would like to thank all my friends and people concerned who have helped me during my two-year study in Hue city, Vietnam. Hue, December 9, 2017 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii LIST OF TABLES. viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .2 Statement of problem.6 Significance of the study. 6 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW.1 Definition of dialogues .2 Kinds of dialogues .3 Using dialogues in teaching English.4 Using a role play in teaching English .5 Making dialogues in teaching English .1 Definition of speaking skills .2 Components of speaking skills .3 Accuracy and fluency of speaking .4 Teaching speaking skills .3 Using dialogue activities in speaking class .4 Previous studies on using dialogues in teaching English speaking skills.
34 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY. 40 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 Findings about learners .2 Students‟ difficulties in learning English speaking skills without using dialogues .2 Findings about the teachers .1 Teachers‟ problems of teaching English speaking skills .2 Teacher‟s opinions on the benefits of using dialogues in teaching English speaking skills .3 Teacher‟s experiment of using dialogues in speaking class .4 Teacher‟s share of students‟ achievements of using dialogues in English speaking class.5 Teachers‟ shares of their techniques, methods and activities in teaching English speaking skills .6 Teacher‟s suggestions of some techniques/methods and activities of using dialogues in teaching English speaking skills. 53 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .90 TEACHER‟S INTERVIEW QUESTIONS .90 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL : English as a Foreign Language. EIL : English as an International Language GAE : General American English Lao PDR : Lao People‟s Democratic Republic N : Number PUSS : Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School S : Student SPSS : Statistical Package for the Social Science Std : Standard deviation T : Teacher ( ̅) : Mean vii LIST OF TABLES Contents Pages Table 1: Students‟ difficulties before attending the speaking class using dialogues .44 Table 2: Students‟ activities in English speaking class .48 Table 3: Students‟ achievements of using dialogues in English speaking class .49 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background At present, Lao PDR is developing in all aspects of economy, society and education.
Education is considered one of the strong focuses that government has paid great attention to national development goals. Educational system has been extending from the urban to rural areas in our country; hence, children must have been educated as much as they need. According to the educational policy, learning and teaching English as a foreign language like English should be improved immediately, especially teaching English has become important and necessary to help students obtain higher knowledge. Therefore, teaching English in public and private schools should be taken into a great consideration by many educators and researchers in Lao PDR.
In Laos educational system, since English language is one of the compulsory subjects at lower and upper secondary schools, its teaching has been developed professionally nationwide due to the great demand of users. Previously, English language was not the obligatory subject included in the curriculum of all the schools, but nowadays it becomes one of the most important subjects that should be taught in primary schools, secondary schools, even colleges and universities. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to focus on their teaching quality. In fact, to be successful in each lesson of English, teachers always have to find new methods to attract students‟ attention.
According to teachers of English in Lao PDR, teaching a foreign language in general and English in particular, always concentrates on the following skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, to have good communication skills, speaking is the most important factor because it is the most comprehensive skills; however, speaking is regarded as the most difficult skills for learners, especially for the second language learners. Based on our national education programs at different levels of primary and secondary schools, English language syllabi provided are also various. For example, there are five sub-levels belonging to level 1 of English language competence for students from grade one to grade five at primary schools.
Meanwhile, at secondary 1 school, English language competence is divided into two levels for students in secondary schools including lower secondary (level 2) and upper secondary schools (level 3). In lower secondary schools, there are 4 grades (grade 1, 2, 3 and 4) and 3 more grades in upper secondary schools (including grade 5, 6 and 7). This study mainly focuses on English teaching and learning at level 3. The subjects of our study with the topic titled “Using Dialogues in Teaching English Speaking Skills at Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School Champasak-Lamdong (Laos)” include students in grade 6 and teachers of English, who are teaching English language in grade six at upper secondary school at Ponesavanh Upper Secondary School Champasak-Lamdong, Laos.
There are several reasons why dialogues can be used to teach students‟ speaking skills. Dialogue is a good way to get learners to practice saying target language without any hesitation and within a variety of context (Ur, 1996: 78). It means through dialogues students are able to practice and express their thoughts orally in the target language. Dialogues are more important activities in teaching English speaking skills.
It is one of the activities that can support communicative competence in a language teaching class. Dialogues can be used in many ways in the classroom. Teachers use dialogues in different activities such as role plays, games, simulations and information gaps to introduce new vocabulary and help students become familiar with standard formulas in discussing various topics. Teachers also ask students to learn by heart some simple dialogues as a way of helping them improve their vocabulary.
Besides, dialogues are a part of language which is very important in learning a language (Kayi, 2006: 38). On the one hand, the advantage of dialogues is shown that the learners are not only able to understand the words of English, but also understand the correct English rules. It can be said that dialogues can represent the learner‟s intention by using suitable words in their speech. With dialogues students can imitate new words, grammar structures and pronunciation that they can use to express their thoughts orally.
It also gives them a tool in analyzing vocabulary and grammar of a conversation for their discussion or talks. As a result, 2 it becomes easier for students to create their own sentences and make their speech in a foreign language when using dialogues. Moreover, dialogues are meaningful mutual excerpts of conversations focused on one point of English usage, and a capable dialogue is a special discourse employing distinctive skills to achieve mutual of stimulating further conversation (Matthews and Read, 1989: 25). That is to say, a dialogue in teaching a language, as we usually understand it, is a natural conversation to be presented either orally or in a practicing and drilling way in a language speaking class.
Everything in dialogues is meaningful and relevant to the situation of the students‟ daily life. This situation will be very important for students who learn English language, and dialogue is well suited for practicing language in real communication situations. Teachers can present dialogues in various ways in order to make their students improve their speaking skills by talking freely in English. Speaking is one of the important skills that should be mastered by students in order to communicate in English fluently and clearly.